Google & Samsung To Launch Clouds

[tubemonkey]

Word on the Web this week is that two new clouds are on the horizon – Google Drive and Samsung’s S-Cloud.

The much-anticipated Google Drive is expected to launch next week, offering users 5 gigabytes of storage for free, according to reports. The Next Web said it managed to get a draft of Google's announcement. The site reports that Google Drive will work “in desktop folders” on Mac and Windows computers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reports surfaced Friday that Samsung is about to launch its own cloud service to rival Apple's iCloud next month. According to the Verge, Korean site Maeil Business claims that Samsung will introduce the S-Cloud service at its May 3 press event. Samsung is said to be offering more than 5 gigabytes, but whether that's to be paid or free is unclear.

This will help bolster Google's ecosystem. As to Samsung, it looks to be a means to further content delivery between various Samsung devices - televisions, tablets, smartphones, media players, etc.

I see clouds as toys. They have no particle application for me.

[MV64]

Cloud service sucks. It's a useful tool but I really don't like where they're trying to take it, forcing everyone into their ecosystems. And what happens when the government decides to shut their service down? Goodbye everything you have. Clouds help, especially if you're a businessperson I guess, but for practical every day use they're not that great especially if you don't have wi-fi or Internet everywhere you go.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by MV64

Cloud service sucks. It's a useful tool but I really don't like where they're trying to take it, forcing everyone into their ecosystems. And what happens when the government decides to shut their service down? Goodbye everything you have. Clouds help, especially if you're a businessperson I guess, but for practical every day use they're not that great especially if you don't have wi-fi or Internet everywhere you go.

I use Dropbox as a my cloud solution because of its excellent desktop app. I don't worry about what happens if DropBox's servers are shut down because the data is mirrored across 4 computers, in addition to their servers. Just because it's stored "in the cloud" doesn't mean you can't have local copies.

I'm a little disappointed in Google though, 5GB is pretty paltry, hardly a reason to switch for me. Given what they did with Gmail (offering 1GB of storage when Yahoo and the like were offering 20MB or less), it's also a little surprising.

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I'm a little disappointed in Google though, 5GB is pretty paltry, hardly a reason to switch for me. Given what they did with Gmail (offering 1GB of storage when Yahoo and the like were offering 20MB or less), it's also a little surprising.

Odd, I've always had 7gb storage on gmail (7700mb). Are you sure about that?

I checked, a long time ago, 1gb was offered, but 7gb is the standard now. Who in the heck even uses Yahoo email anymore? AOL anyone?

[SeaKing]

I store as much as I want on gmail.
Some accounts for mail. Some for storage.

Clouds will make it more formal.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Odd, I've always had 7gb storage on gmail (7700mb). Are you sure about that?

I checked, a long time ago, 1gb was offered, but 7gb is the standard now. Who in the heck even uses Yahoo email anymore? AOL anyone?

I still have a couple of Yahoo accounts. I belong to some groups on Yahoo.
I also have a Hotmail account, related to Microsoft stuff.
Both Yahoo and Hotmail have increased their capacities to somewhat match Gmail. It is about 7Bil plus.

I never had an AOL account or AOL email address.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Odd, I've always had 7gb storage on gmail (7700mb). Are you sure about that?

I checked, a long time ago, 1gb was offered, but 7gb is the standard now. Who in the heck even uses Yahoo email anymore? AOL anyone?

I have one lone Yahoo account that I use for all the willing spam contest stuff I enter on occasion. It works out well so I can make my entry, check it once a week to see if there's any results...and never bother with it otherwise.

But, I'm still a bit wary of cloud storage for serious stuff. I use dropbox for some ebooks, picture sharing, and the occasional work file I need to pick up at home and on my phone... But, past that, I try not to use it a whole lot. And, when I do, I make sure I've got local copies of it on at LEAST 2 different machines.

[SmokeAndMirrors]

Originally Posted by MV64

Cloud service sucks. It's a useful tool but I really don't like where they're trying to take it, forcing everyone into their ecosystems. And what happens when the government decides to shut their service down? Goodbye everything you have. Clouds help, especially if you're a businessperson I guess, but for practical every day use they're not that great especially if you don't have wi-fi or Internet everywhere you go.

That's why I'm sticking to independent, established services like Dropbox. Sites and apps won't start dropping support for it the moment Google Drive or whatever else comes out - too many people use it for them to do that.

If they shut their services down, that's why I have back-ups. Storing things in the cloud with no back-ups is absolutely insane. Clouds are not back-ups. They're a way to have access to data in various places without having to carry a card or drive with you all the time. If you're worried you won't have access to internet later, just save the files you need to the device's local drive.

They're extremely practical. As a student and a reporter, I use it all the time. I have all the same files on my desktop, my phone, my tablet, or any computer in the world with an internet connection that I pull up the Dropbox website on.

[Giggleton]

hmmm........... My gmail inbox says 20 percent full. I assume they'll offer more if I ever need it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MV64

Cloud service sucks. It's a useful tool but I really don't like where they're trying to take it, forcing everyone into their ecosystems. And what happens when the government decides to shut their service down? Goodbye everything you have. Clouds help, especially if you're a businessperson I guess, but for practical every day use they're not that great especially if you don't have wi-fi or Internet everywhere you go.

Why on Earth would "the government decide to shut their service down"?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pamela109

It's a useful tool but I really don't like where they're trying to take it, forcing everyone into their ecosystems.

In what way are you being forced into it?

[tubemonkey]

I'll use clouds when WiFi (or similar) is available everywhere.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why on Earth would "the government decide to shut their service down"?

Maybe he's thinking of the recent Megaupload case. Not the criminal investigation, but the one brought by Carpathia (Megaupload's server provider) to determine what they're supposed to do with the files; a number of users that were storing legitimate files via Megaupload were quite concerned when the DoJ began arguing that the files should be deleted and when the DoJ advanced a weird secondary liability argument that Carpathia could itself be liable for copyright infringement.

Given that case and the criminal case against Megaupload, I can kind of understand people being a little leery of cloud storage.

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Odd, I've always had 7gb storage on gmail (7700mb). Are you sure about that?

I checked, a long time ago, 1gb was offered, but 7gb is the standard now. Who in the heck even uses Yahoo email anymore? AOL anyone?

My comment was about what Google first did to differentiate Gmail from Yahoo and others, not what they're doing now; I believe that when Gmail first came out (and was invite only), it only offered about 1GB of storage.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Odd, I've always had 7gb storage on gmail (7700mb). Are you sure about that?

I checked, a long time ago, 1gb was offered, but 7gb is the standard now. Who in the heck even uses Yahoo email anymore? AOL anyone?

just checked my gmail account page.

Maximum attachment size

With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size.

Please note that you may not be able to send larger attachments to contacts who use other email services with smaller attachment limits. If your attachment bounces, you should invite them to Gmail.

far cry from 7g

Checked my ymail account, which is yahoo really (and I like them use them more than gmail, btw, so the answer to the last question is me!), and...

You can attach one or more files to an email message as long as the total message size; the combined size of the email headers, message text, and attached files doesn’t exceed 25 MB. Here's how:

which is the same.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

just checked my gmail account page.


far cry from 7g

Checked my ymail account, and...


which is the same.

You and he are talking about two different things. Gmail allows you to store up to ~7,700 MBs of emails and attachments, but you can't send an attachment that's over 25MB. This is another reason cloud storage is useful - you can share large files with other people easily.